Author Archives

Feature / Music — 15 Comments
18
Nov 09

Blinded By The Hype? The xx – xx

Don’t forget to rate the album at the end of the post.

Welcome back to Blinded By The Hype, the PMA feature in which we revisit albums once the hype has died down. In today’s world, music is released at a machine gun pace. It’s a what-have-you-done-for-me-lately type scene, and “lately” usually means this week. Rarely do we stop to smell the roses. Even good albums get overlooked as time passes. And we almost never – aside from year end lists – take a look backward. Hindsight is 20-20, and we’d like to apply that retrovision to set the record straight. Hence, Blinded By The Hype. A quick refresher for those of you who might have missed out on the rules the first few times. Continue reading →

Album Reviews / Music — 13 Comments
27
Oct 09

Freelance Whales – Weathervanes, Album Review

Don’t forget to rate this album at the end of the post.
Freelance Whales Weathervanes, Album Review album reviews reviews 2Freelance Whales
Weathervanes
Self-Released
out August 23rd
87/100Buy it at iTunes
[Rating Scale]

Falling in love with a young band is a lot like falling in love with a young woman – the same exhilaration, the same trepidation, the same split-second panics. Is this a fleeting fling or a lasting relationship? Will I look back a few years from now and regret this commitment? Is it too early to friend her on facebook? There’s an excitement unique to young bands, a promise and enthusiasm that’s difficult to capture.

Freelance Whales embody that promise, with a debut album that has garnered more praise and buzz in the last few weeks than it did during its first few months of existence. The hype train is pulling out of the station, whether you’re on it or not. Remember Passion Pit? Those smug little popsters who captured our hearts with synths and falsettos last year are passing the torch to folkier conductors.

And despite my hesitations and my fear of commitment, I’m on board. Continue reading →

Album Reviews / Music — 6 Comments
25
Oct 09

HEALTH – Get Color, Album Review

HEALTH Get Color, Album Review album reviews reviews 2HEALTH
Get Color
Lovepump United
out September 8th
71 /100Buy it at Insound!
[Rating Scale]

Listening to HEALTH’s sophomore album, it’s tough not to envision barren landscapes and smoking piles of ruin. Ironically, for an album titled Get Color, the music is painted in blacks and grays – mechanical, repetitive, noisy without remorse. Get Color, like other products of the LA noise rock scene, sounds like machines have taken over the Earth, found some musical record of the humans who used to inhabit this planet, and are now attempting to replicate the melodies and rhythms.

Except that on Get Color, the machines are actually doing a fairly passable job. There are haunting, ethereal hints at humanity – an echoing human voice here, a drumbeat that sounds a little too organic to be programmed there. And that hint that this music isn’t completely made by machines is what makes all the difference. Continue reading →

Album Reviews / Music / Reviews — 25 Comments
15
Oct 09

Karen O and the Kids – Where The Wild Things Are OST, Album Review

ALBUM and POSTER giveaway details at the end of the post.
Karen O and the Kids Where The Wild Things Are OST, Album Review album reviews reviews 2 Karen O and the Kids
Where The Wild Things Are OST

DSC
out September 29th

74/100
[Rating Scale]
Buy it at Insound!

[rating:74/100]
Karen O and The Kids’ Where The Wild Things Are OST is an album that is impossible to consider abstracted from the movie it is destined to accompany. Unlike some soundtracks merely meant to advance the plot, provide suspense, or fill the void left by a lack of dialogue, this soundtrack embodies everything the movie is. The film’s characters make appearances, the themes of the songs match those of the book and movie, and the soundtrack’s parabola parallels that of Where The Wild Things Are’s plot.

So it is ironic, then, that I find myself reviewing this album prior to ever seeing the film. I feel, in many ways, that I’ve heard a sneak preview – that what I’ll see on the screen will simply be the music videos I’ve been imagining accompanying this album all along. And the fact that the film will likely exceed the expectations that this soundtrack creates fits with everything else related to the media blitz that has been WTWTA. Continue reading →

Album Reviews / Music / Reviews — 4 Comments
30
Sep 09

BLK JKS – After Robots, Album Review

BLK JKS After Robots, Album Review album reviews reviews 2 BLK JKS
After Robots

Secretly Canadian
out September 8th

48/100
[Rating Scale]
Buy it at Insound!

[rating:48/100]
I really wanted to like BLK JKS. They have been described, by people who should know better, as a South African TV On The Radio. Their drummer was named the “best musician” at SXSW 2008 – a gathering not short on phenomenal musicians. They bring genuine African voices to a genre where derivatives like Vampire Weekend and Dirty Projectors have recently thrived. By all accounts they should knock my socks off.

But here’s the disappointing thing: They don’t. Shocker, I know, but BLK JKS’ debut LP After Robots isn’t the greatest thing you’ll hear this year. It’s not even close, really.

Which is a damn shame, if I may say so, but perhaps a teaching moment. See, we’ve come to expect incredible things from bands we’ve never heard of. We’ve grown accustomed to the Bon Ivers and Arcade Fires of the world, blooming from genesis to greatness in what seems like seconds. We forget that lots of great bands start out as great concepts with mediocre execution. Bands develop, hone their talents, refine and streamline their creative processes. The world of insta-stardome that we’ve become accustomed to isn’t for everyone. Continue reading →

Album Reviews / Music / Reviews — 9 Comments
23
Sep 09

Neon Indian – Psychic Chasms, Album Review

Don’t forget to rate this album at the end of the post (something I’m trying out)
Neon Indian Psychic Chasms, Album Review album reviews reviews 2 Neon Indian
Psychic Chasms

Lefse
out October 13th

64/100
[Rating Scale]
Buy it at Insound!

[rating:64/100]
I’m pretty sure that if Neon Indian had come around ten or fifteen years ago, he would have been laughed at, dismissed as quickly as he has burst onto the scene. But here, in the context of this year’s bizarro lo-fi resurrection that we find ourselves living through, Neon Indian is a logical next step. It’s Passion Pit for the Gorilla vs. Bear crowd. What a strange turn of events.

Luckily, Alan Palomo, the man behind Neon Indian’s tunes, acknowledges his precarious position in the world of popular music. In an interview with Pitchfork, Palomo admitted, “I’d be lying if I said lo-fi was a completely gimmick-free genre. It’s an old trick to just cover songs in reverb and distortion– one I’ve been guilty of in the past.” He went on to later say that, “I do have some ambivalence towards lo-fi where it stands right now. There’s so much stuff coming out on blogs and I have this impending anxiety as to whether it’s going to become another electro disaster.” I’m right there with Palomo. We’re on the verge of lo-fi overload – perhaps half a year away from the type of backlash that surrounds bloghouse and autotune. Continue reading →

Album Reviews / Music / Reviews — 20 Comments
10
Sep 09

Jay-Z – The Blueprint 3, Album Review

CD giveaway, details at end of review

Jay Z The Blueprint 3, Album Review album reviews reviews 2 Jay-Z
The Blueprint 3

Roc Nation
out September 11th

68/100
[Rating Scale]
Buy it at Insound!

[rating:68/100]
It must be tough to be Jay-Z. Not in the “I’m married to Beyoncé” way, or in the “I’m the reigning elder statesman of rap” way, but in the way that you’ve been around and relevant for so long that you are a magnet for criticism – the oldest active voice of the new school, struggling to remain on the forefront of the game.

Any artist releasing his 11th album faces a challenge. Do you change your style to stay up with the new trends, allowing your sound to evolve while turning your back on the moves that brought you success in the first place? Or do you stick with what works, reprising older successes with a few changes in the hooks and lyrics? It’s a tough decision. Continue reading →

Album Reviews / Music / Reviews — 17 Comments
2
Sep 09

The Very Best – Warm Heart of Africa, Album Review

CD and LP giveaway, details at end of review

The Very Best Warm Heart of Africa, Album Review album reviews reviews 2 The Very Best
Warm Heart of Africa

Green Owl Records
out October 6th

86/100
[Rating Scale]
Buy it at Insound!

[rating:86/100]
A French producer and a Malawian singer walk into a thrift shop to haggle for a bicycle. Sounds like the beginning of a terrible joke, huh? Instead it’s the beginning of great music, with Esau Mwamwaya playing the singer role, and Johan Hugo and DJ Tron getting the producer credits. The collaboration, under the name “The Very Best,” caught the music world in a rare moment of unpreparedness as last year’s The Very Best Mixtape surprised even the most savvy heads. The tape built steam on word of mouth, leaving a path of excitement, dancing, and top ten lists in its wake. The Very Best Mixtape fused traditional African rhythms and vocal styles with Architecture in Helsinki, Vampire Weekend, M.I.A., Michael Jackson. It was a stunning cross section of popular music, a genre-defying collection of tunes that just made you feel real good.

Rumors of a full length album started to float around those unpredictable interwebs, tempting me like the saucy minx that rumors are. And then, on a rather unassuming Friday in June, it dropped into my lap. Continue reading →

Album Reviews / Music / Reviews — 14 Comments
26
Aug 09

The Antlers – Hospice, Album Review

CD and LP giveaway, details at end of review

The Antlers Hospice, Album Review album reviews reviews 2 The Antlers
Hospice

Frenchkiss
out August 18th

90/100
[Rating Scale]
Buy it at Insound!

[rating:90/100]
There are few albums that give me shivers. Few albums that really get me at my core – real albums, honest albums, painfully personal albums. Even rarer are those records that continue to do so on subsequent listens, hitting me hard each time I hear its story unfold. The Antlers’ Hospice does it like few I can remember.

The album is the product of Peter Silberman’s two year isolation in New York City, a seemingly foreign concept that is much closer to reality than many of the New York City myths you hear on records. Emerging from his self imposed exile, he joined with Michael Lerner and Darby Cicci to form the current incarnation of The Antlers, recording two EPs that would eventually merge to become Hospice. The album tells the story of a man forced to watch his loved one struggle with – and eventually succumb to – bone cancer, and it tells it eloquently, brutally, breath-takingly. Continue reading →

Album Reviews / Feature / Music / Reviews — 32 Comments
15
Aug 09

The Rise and Stumble of the Arctic Monkeys

Humbug review and CD + LP giveaway.

Remember when the Arctic Monkeys were supposed to be the next big thing? It was back when a bunch of new bands were hitting the scene and everyone was drinking the We Are Scientists Kool-Aid. It was late 2005, and the Arctic Monkeys were the talk of the town, the saviors of indie rock, the heir apparent to the newly built Franz Ferdinand throne. “I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor” had people dancing across a number of continents, and their cheekily titled album, Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not, was the fastest selling debut album in UK history.

It was a fantastic debut album, and the Monkeys had a good mix of musical chops and cocky confidence. They seemed disinterested in label games, willing to alienate radio and label heads in favor of a grassroots fan-base.

But despite not seeking press (or perhaps because of it) there was a fair amount of media involved in the construction and rise of the Arctic Monkeys. Sure, the band had built a committed following online, they had brought the noise on their debut, and they had crafted a bunch of really danceable rock tunes. But a debut album is by no means a body of work, and when NME named Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not the 5th best British record of all time, people started to scratch their heads. The follow-up LP from the group, Favourite Worst Nightmare, saw all 12 tracks crack the top 200 on the UK singles chart. And then we started to get nervous.

Well, the nerves probably started earlier than that, but suffice it to say that not everyone bought that initial buzz hook, line, and sinker. It seemed a bit like we were pinning big hopes to a young brash band that might not follow through. Were we just swallowing whatever they songs they gave us and proclaiming excellence out of fear of it being anything less than incredible? Were the Arctic Monkeys just The Killers on a one year delay? Only time will tell, as the saying goes, and that time has come. Now, shortly before the release of the band’s third full length, Humbug, we find ourselves in the modern dilemma of pinning great expectations on a band that didn’t ask for them. The Arctic Monkeys have to prove that they are grown up before they have actually grown up. Continue reading →

← Older Entries